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Bit.ly is Harmful to Your Reputation

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Re: Bit.ly is Harmful to Your Reputation

#81

Post by PanMan »

Lol_Lolovici wrote: post #79
toddml wrote: post #44

Todd from bit.ly here. From day one, we've prized security, transparency, reliability, and openness at bit.ly. Along the way, we've made a number of product decisions based on those tenets. Among those are link permanence (link destinations don't change once created), the avoidance of anything that interferes with user experience (we've never framed, nor will we), and a dedicated focus on spam and malware detection,…

> our API responses and the innumerable clients and scripts that use these methods aren't currently designed with this state in mind Well, you could just return the original URL when it is already shortened and this way there is no new "state" to worry about.

Offcouse that IS a new state. If I call bit.ly's shorten function, I expect a bit.ly link back, not the original URL. I can imagine, for example, not saving the bit.ly part in a db, only the identifier. That breaks (without proper checking) if the original URL is returned.

Re: Bit.ly is Harmful to Your Reputation

#82

Post by Confusion »

tdavis wrote: post #36

Firstly, the hypocrisy of a URL shortener blocking another URL shortener's links because they can't be verified is hilarious. Secondly, if a person goes as far as to shorten every link they copy from their browser and use a Twitter client that shortens all links regardless of length, I hardly think they have much room to complain about the system they're fully backing. What did she expect to happen? That Bitly would…

The blogger reports that bit.ly updated their page, to explain why a link may be disallowed. He doesn't accept their explanation, but it does make a lot of sense:

  - Some URL-shorteners re-use their links, so bit.ly can't
    guarantee the validity of this link.
  - Some URL-shorteners allow their links to be edited, 
    so bit.ly can't tell where this link will lead you.
  - Spam and malware is very often propagated by exploiting
    these loopholes, neither of which bit.ly allows for

Re: Bit.ly is Harmful to Your Reputation

#83

Post by Hume62 »

Isn't the problem bigger than a small number of people not paying attention to their Twitter client re-shortening links when it's not necessary? Aren't people intentionally re-shortening links they get from others, so that they can track their own reach/influence? If I have a big following and I re-shorten your link, I can then go to Bit.ly or (anywhere else I have an account) and exactly measure how that link was spread across the net, regardless of whether any RTs mention me. "I'll take your short link and raise you my own..."

Re: Bit.ly is Harmful to Your Reputation

#84

Post by romland »

alextgordon wrote: post #13
markbao wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that would completely go against the concept of Twitter: short-form communication.

They could detect URLs and not count them towards the total message length.

This is the immediate thought one gets, I can guarantee you that Twitter considered this. It surprises me that parent was deemed insightful.

Should what parent suggests be announced I expect it would be in place for about six minutes (+/- 5) before we'd see the first Tweet with the actual message in the form of a URL.

  http://example.com/Hi_this_is_a_tweet ...
And as someone else stated, long messages are clearly against Twitter's concept/principles/idea/whatever.

The interesting part about this is that instead of URL shorteners we'd end up with domains that would just act as decoders of the link you clicked on. Good or bad, who knows.

And while we're at it, let's think of the next step: It wouldn't be long before someone implemented a packer/cruncher on these messages to be able to squeeze them into a 140 character limit so that it can fit into an SMS. Then we'd realize that this is a remarkably stupid thing to do and start sending un-shortened links to blog posts again. Profit!

Re: Bit.ly is Harmful to Your Reputation

#85

Post by romland »

edanm wrote: post #74
jrockway wrote: post #3

What Twitter needs is to remove the 140 character limitation. Nobody uses SMS anymore, especially when the content contains URLs to non-mobile-friendly sites.

I think Twitter should just not count URL's towards the 140 characters. All URL's should count as one character.

How long before all tweets are in fact bogus links, you think?

Re: Bit.ly is Harmful to Your Reputation

#86

Post by jrockway »

furyg3 wrote: post #77
jrockway wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most people want long URLs to be shortened, but don't want short URLs to be re-shortened. But there's no checkbox for that.

Do people want long URLs to be shortened if they fit in the tweet? I don't know if that's true...

I would be happy with shortening any time when the short URL is not longer than the original...

Re: Bit.ly is Harmful to Your Reputation

#87

Post by amalcon »

Confusion wrote: post #82
tdavis wrote: post #36

Firstly, the hypocrisy of a URL shortener blocking another URL shortener's links because they can't be verified is hilarious. Secondly, if a person goes as far as to shorten every link they copy from their browser and use a Twitter client that shortens all links regardless of length, I hardly think they have much room to complain about the system they're fully backing. What did she expect to happen? That Bitly would…

The blogger reports that bit.ly updated their page, to explain why a link may be disallowed. He doesn't accept their explanation, but it does make a lot of sense: - Some URL-shorteners re-use their links, so bit.ly can't guarantee the validity of this link. - Some URL-shorteners allow their links to be edited, so bit.ly can't tell where this link will lead you. - Spam and malware is very often propagated by exploitin…

It seems a little shaky to me, because: 1) bit.ly could reject the link at submission time, instead of at the time of usage. This would eliminate the whole problem. 2) bit.ly could follow the link, unshorten it, and then shorten the original link. This would eliminate these concerns.

Re: Bit.ly is Harmful to Your Reputation

#88

Post by aquark »

docgnome wrote: post #59
toddml wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In much the same way that we don't frame links, or permanently remove flagged links, we would never return a short link that pointed to anything other than the link requested by the API, or by the user via an interface. It's a simple, deterministic API. The downsides of the proposed approach are far more extreme than any potential upside.

While I see what spohlenz is saying, I think what you've described here is the right way to do it. Once you start changing the target from what I submitted, I would personally be suspicious.

But, if the other shortener is returning a 301 'permanent redirect' isn't it fully within the letter and spirit of the http spec to forget it and remember the target.

If the shortener was only returning an 302 then removing from the chain would be suspect, but they are saying 'this link always points here, use it'

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